One of the best

Once in a while, someone comes into your life, profoundly influences it, and then is gone. You forget, but the legacy remains. Just such a person was Carol Woodward. She was headteacher at Woodford Primary School, just a mile or so away from my home in Plymouth. I knew her both as a parent and in a professional capacity. I served as a governor at Woodford for several years, and later had some professional contact with her in my teacher educator role. She was a wonderful teacher, an inspirational leader, and she had my greatest respect.

All three of my children attended Woodford, but my youngest child, who was then in the process of being diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder, was the one who benefited from her care the most. His condition made him very difficult to manage in class, as he oscillated between sudden, volatile behaviour and social withdrawal. It was a difficult time for our family and also for his teachers, but Carol was incredibly supportive, making sure my son had all of the resources to ensure he received a quality education. Her care and attention, her sunny disposition and her decisive intervention were instrumental in ensuring that my son was educated to the highest standards. The children in his class were also incredibly supportive, which is a further testament to the high quality of the teaching at Woodford School.

Over time, my son has learnt to manage and surmount the challenges his autism presents, and now, aged 20, he is in his first year at Plymouth University, studying on a degree programme in computer graphics and games design. He's doing very well. As a family we can't thank Carol enough for the hard work, dedicated care and superb encouragement she gave us all during my son's years at her school. We would love her to know that he is now studying at university, and that her efforts from all that time ago have paid off. We would love her to feel proud of what she achieved with him. But she will never hear it. Sadly, she will never know, because Carol took her own life at the end of the last school term.

The heartbreaking tributes from children currently at the school, and those from her family show just how much she was loved, and the high esteem in which she was held. Tragically, Carol's life came to an end when she could no longer face the pressure and the ignominy of a poor OFSTED report. Her health and mental well being declined rapidly following the government school inspection. It had been conducted while the school was experiencing disruption from building works. The report said the school was inadequate, because communication with parents was 'not always effective', and some bullying incidents had not been recorded. These are questionable criticisms of a school that has enjoyed an exemplary track record for decades. Did the school deserve such a damning report on the basis of these small failures?

It's impossible to say what other pressures there were in Carol's life, and what finally caused her to decide to take her own life. But for those who knew her, and knew the pride with which she led her school, and looked after the children in her care, it is clear. The OFSTED visit would have caused a tremendous amount of unneeded pressure on everyone, and the trauma of receiving a report that showed the school in a bad light would have been a major contributory factor to her death.

It can only be speculated upon what went through the minds of the inspectors of Woodford School, when they wrote their report. Some of my colleagues are currently school inspectors, or have been in the past, so I am aware of the pressures they themselves face from above. OFSTED's leadership is not famed for its friendliness. Established as the government's education watchdog, many believe that OFSTED has evolved into an attack dog, coached to act aggressively. Regardless of the hype and media surrounding OFSTED, we need a reality check. Schools have improved tremendously over the last few years, and many are now asking whether OFSTED is still necessary. This simply adds further fuel to the fire.

Life is precious, and the lives of teachers are fraught with challenges and pressures. You don't need to look too far to find accounts of teachers suffering from insomnia, anxiety, depression, alcoholism and stories of the culture of fear in schools. Caring for the mental health of teachers is an issue that is not addressed sufficiently in our society. How many teachers entertain suicidal thoughts because of the extreme pressures brought on by a school inspection? Most educators would agree that the additional pressures created by a school inspection do nothing to improve the quality of teaching. In this case, it seems a school inspection cost the life of an excellent teacher.

Carol Woodward was one of the best, sadly taken before her time. In time, the OFSTED report will be forgotten and the school will move on. In her time, thousands of children have benefited from Carol Woodward's excellent teaching and leadership. That will be her legacy. May she rest in peace.

Related items:
Head Teacher suicide verdict
Head's suicide raises questions about Ofsted inspection

Photo: Evening Herald


One of the best by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

That'll teach him

My school years were patchy to say the least. My father was in the Royal Air Force, so I spent most of my formative years travelling, and switching schools on a regular basis, which played havoc with my education. I went to 10 schools in total, starting in Gibraltar at St George's Primary School and completing my schooling in Brunssum, Holland at the AFCENT International School. My school years were difficult for one important reason. There was no National Curriculum, which meant that every school taught what they considered to be most important. Because I switched schools every year or so, I learnt some content two or three times, and I missed some content completely. I learnt more about process than product during those turbulent years.

On reflection, I can now see exactly how teachers can either make or break a child's education. The old maxim 'Doctors save lives, teachers make lives' is true. I recall one teacher in particular who took me on and inspired me to learn new things. Mr Handel was one of the two primary teachers at Cherhill Primary School near Calne in Wiltshire, who stand out in my memory. He spent time with me helping me in the areas I was struggling with, and he really went the extra mile, to make sure I achieved to my full potential. The other teacher in the same school was the polar opposite. I once asked her a question about English grammar. She looked at me with contempt, told me I had asked a 'stupid question' and then made a big joke out of it. The whole class laughed at me, and I went bright red with embarrassment. I was only 8 years old, but I can still recall how it felt. It taught me a lesson. I never asked another question in class throughout the whole of my school life. I will refrain from naming that teacher.

Many teachers are excellent at what they do, and really care about the children in their care. I try to do the same, aspiring to be like Mr Handel, taking time to give my students individual attention if they are struggling in some difficult area. I try to instil some of these values in my student teachers too. But there are a very few teachers who can stifle creativity and discourage individualism - exactly the traits we need to draw out from our learners so that they can develop the skills to transfer into lifelong learning. Teachers can make all the difference, but sometimes it is time and pressure that militate against this. I look at my own children now as they negotiate their way through school and into work, and I sometimes cringe at some of the things they come home and tell me about their school experiences. It's as tough for them as it was for me. But school isn't the be all and end all and nothing is graven in stone.

My travelling took its toll on my formative years, and I left school with very few qualifications. I made a lot of friends, and had to keep making new ones, so I became very adept at interpersonal skills, but was very weak on content. All of my academic achievements have been made because of my own efforts and due to my own passion for learning, and all of them after the age of 30. The week I finally left school, my form tutor met with my parents. 'Steve is a great lad, and is very sociable' he told them, 'but don't ever expect him to become an academic'.

Photo by Cam Good on Flickr


That'll teach him by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Punk learning

By 1977, punk music had emerged as a creative force to be reckoned with. It was a form of music that was furiously loud, aggressively energetic and full of discordant anger.

Some were outraged by the audacious behaviour of the punk rockers. Their clothes and hairstyles were bizarre and their demeanour was antagonistic and aggressive.

Others were energised and inspired by punk rock - some enough to take up a guitar or microphone and give it a go themselves. You see, at the heart of the punk movement was the belief that you could do-it-yourself. To release a record you didn't have to bow and scrape to the multi-national music publishers and labels.

Anyone could take part. Audiences and bands often merged. Many punk bands created their own labels and fanzines, promoting their music to new audiences by subverting the rules, challenging the established way of doing things and creating a new and vibrant culture of creativity.

Punks cared nothing for authority or tradition. The only thing they respected was authenticity. Essentially, punks spat in the face of 'the establishment' and went off to do things their own way.  



Punk learning (some would call it Edupunk) reflects that seventies music ethos. For some time, educators have been subverting established methods and turning their backs on institutional tools and technologies such as the managed learning environment (also known as LMS or VLE). I would argue that these are 'punk' educators, whether they realise it or not. Some educators have at some time openly identified themselves as edupunk, including Amy Burvall (who created a series of history teacher videos for YouTube), Jim Groom (pictured top, considered the originator of Edupunk) and Pam Nelmes (who has transformed communication across her large cohorts of nursing students and with the general public through creative use of social media).

Many punk educators are finding viable and for them, more acceptable alternatives to proprietary software, structured courses and closed journals, and instead are devoting their energy to creating new approaches including open software, open courses (including the original C-MOOCs) and open publishing with free tools. The C-MOOC or Connectivist Massive Open Online Course was a free at the point of delivery online learning experience with no limits to the numbers who participated, and where 'students' could choose how, where and when they learnt. Some of the early MOOCs also allowed students to choose their own preferred method of assessment, and spawned many creative outcomes such as global radio with #ds106.

There is also a lot of energy being directed into transforming the education experience. Some go as far as to argue that autodidacticism - or self-teaching - is an important part of contemporary learning. Learning by watching YouTube or participation in social media discussions are certainly methods that are gaining traction. For example, 2015 world champion Kenyan javelin thrower Julius Yego claims he owes his prowess to watching YouTube videos. Even professional teacher development through social media is gaining great impetus, evidenced by the large numbers of participants on education Twitter chats such as #edchat, #AussieEd and #ukedchat as well as global online events such as the Reform Symposium.



In this digital age some are changing their opinions about what we think education is and should be. Punk educators have a lot to do with this - it's not just the disruptive nature of social media and personal technologies. It's also the energy and commitment they have to making a difference in a new way. But punk educators need to be wary of a precedent. What happened to the original punk rock movement? It was compromised and commercialised - becoming the very thing it was trying to avoid in the first place. The contrast between the raw late-70s punk rock of The Clash and The Sex Pistols and the more polished post-punk (or 'new wave') commercial sounds of the early-80s from U2 and Blondie is stark.

Fast forward to today, and we see signs that the early dynamic MOOCs and other punk learning approaches are being adulterated. The recent offerings of the so called xMOOCs which use Coursera and other bespoke developed platforms is returning the MOOC to the traditional online delivery and it is now hard to tell the difference. But a hard core of punk educators remains who are determined to do things differently. Whatever pressures the commercial world throws at education, and whatever the criticism thrown at them by traditional educationalists, edupunks will still continue regardless, practising their own particular brands of pedagogical anarchy and will answer with a: 'WE DON'T CARE.'

Graphic image courtesy of Jim Groom


Punk learning by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

A lot of balls

Three things.

Firstly, if you tried to pick these balls up, you might do yourself a mischief. They are heavy, because the sculpture is a whole load of tennis balls bonded together, and they are fixed to a solid wooden plinth. If they were individual tennis balls, you could pick them up more easily (a few at a time, like the tennis players do).

If they were separated they probably wouldn't look as impressive, because clearly, this structure is attractive, whereas a pile of tennis balls are... well, just a pile of tennis balls.

If you tried to bounce it, you wouldn't be successful. Individual balls have a certain freedom that this cube does not. They can be hit or thrown in any direction, and you can put a spin on them. These balls have been glued together, forced into a configuration. Personal learning is not something that should be ordered. Learning is always personal, and messy .... and occasionally chaotic. This cube of tennis balls represents anything but personalised learning.

Secondly, the balls are tethered to a surface. They aren't going anywhere soon. Immobility has been imposed upon them. This is important to maintain the integrity of this sculpture, but tethering is increasingly a problem in education. Tethered learning may be convenient for schools to manage, but it's not optimal. Having students sat in orderly rows or tiers (tears) may be easier for the lecturer or teacher to manage, but for the students it's not always a good scene.

I never liked having to sit at my desk and face the front for hours on end. I wanted to get up, get out, and explore. I still think more clearly and solve problems faster when I'm pacing around, wandering through libraries or moving across uncertain terrain (literally or metaphorically). I am not comfortable in meetings when I have to sit for long periods at a table.

Tethered devices are not much better. The desktop PC keeps you in one place, and limits your posture. Mobile devices allow learners to take their connection with them, discover for themselves, and to learn on the move. That is situated learning, where what is being learnt is in its context, and it's a lot more effective for many students.

Thirdly, this configuration of balls is not a network, it's a cube. If it were a network, the nodes would be more separated, but there would also be more connections. In its present configuration each ball can be connected to no more than 6 other balls. In a network, connections are virtually infinite.

The power of the network is in the exponential nature of the connections that can be made, and thence in the amplification power this affords. Learning networks find their power in the number of connections, as can be demonstrated by the way neurones within the human brain connect to each other. This cube of balls is absolutely the antithesis of a network, because connection is so limited.

The future of learning is where all learners are connected to as many other learners and teachers as possible, so that learning is mobile, personal, limitless and unconstrained by configuration. The future of learning is connected, social, mobile and personal.

Photo by Steve Wheeler


A lot of balls by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England as a part of the #blimage challenge and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Roving reporters #EduTECHAU

One of the many, many highlights for me of my time at EduTech Australia this year in Brisbane, was an interview I did with some of Pearson's sponsored students roving reporters. Still in high school, they were everywhere, investigating the sights and sounds, and grabbing a few minutes with keynote speakers and delegates to see what they could learn. It is a fabulous idea that other conferences should adopt. My two intrepid reporters, Ryan and Sohan (Sohan sat behind the camera) asked me about my views on the current education system, and how I saw learning changing in the future. They had done their homework and knew exactly what questions to ask me.

Clearly there was a lot I was able to say to these young journalists, including sharing my beliefs about how important student centred learning is, the new and emerging roles of teachers as co-learners and the role technology is playing in shaping their lives and their futures. Ryan's final question was one that made me stop and think - what would I have wished my younger self to have known?

I thought back over my own time in school, which wasn't always a happy time, and I remember the fear of ridicule that constantly hung over me. Back in the wonderful 1980s, Adam Ant, one of the new romantic pop stars of the time sang a song in which there was a line 'ridicule is nothing to be scared of.' And yet, when you are young, it is very much something to fear. You want to belong, you have a deep need to be liked and to fit into your peer group. This didn't always happen, and there were times when I felt isolated from the rest of the group. So I answered with: 'Always be true to yourself, and stand by your principles, no matter what...' I explained to them that when you are younger this can be difficult. Your integrity comes under attack when you are pressurised into conforming with the rest of the group, asked to run with the pack. Sometimes it takes a great deal of personal strength not to comply, especially when you are uncomfortable with what the group is planning to do. Many of my friends took drugs as school, or went out in the evenings to create havoc. I spent most of my time resisting this, and stood out like a sore thumb.

So I said - always be true to yourself, and stand by your principles. It's something that, as you grow older, you come to develop as a part of your daily life. I then turned the tables on my two young interrogators, and asked them some questions. I asked them what they would like to see happening in school. They told me that there were two important things that teachers should support. The first was more collaboration in learning, where students could work together to discover new things and consolidate their learning. They also emphasised a need for more learning through making. They enthused over makerspaces and the idea of learning through problem solving. These boys will go far. They already have an understanding beyond their years about what really helps us to learn. The video of the interview(s) will be available on this blog and elsewhere when Pearson's post-production team have wielded their magic.

Photo by W Finch on Wikimedia Commons


Roving reporters #EduTECHAU by Steve Wheeler was written in Brisbane, Australia and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Reinventing learning spaces

Phone charging station at Stratford Shopping Centre, London

I have written extensively about education spaces, architectures for learning, and personal learning environments. I elaborated on these ideas in my recent book Learning with 'e's like this:

If the design of a space is wrong, learning can be constrained or even stifled. It's hard to engage students when their surroundings are poor. Too much noise, not enough light, too much heat or cold, uncomfortable seats, even poorly configured seating in a classroom can adversely affect learning. Teachers should be the architects of learning spaces (Wheeler, 2015, p 102).

My most recent blog post, Hi-Tech Campus? highlighted the need for better design of learning spaces in higher education, but the principle applies to all educational environments. I outlined some inherent problems in my own university campus, and asked others on Twitter to suggest what they thought the campus of the future might look like. Actually, the campus of the future, wherever that may be, is already being reinvented right now, and the present and the future are blurring. The need for students to be able to access their content, peers and tutors at any time and in any place necessitates redesign of many environments around a typical university or school campus.

Firstly, Dan Axson, a teacher in Brighton, England, responded to my Twitter question, drawing my attention to a very interesting innovation: Wireless charging of mobile devices would certainly meet many of the needs currently experienced in traditional teaching environments such as lecture theatres where no provision has been made to include power sockets. There is nothing more frustrating than wishing to capture something interesting with your camera or social media tool, and finding that your battery has died. Others see charging stations appearing on campuses in the near future, just as they have already done in shopping malls, airports and hotels. Jose Picardo, an assistant principal in Surbiton, England, made a similar point, suggesting that inductive charging desks, table tops and other emergent technologies that are built into the furniture might soon obviate the need for power sockets at all. Nothing was said about improving wifi connectivity in learning environments, but I suspect that this would also be top of most people's agenda for good campus design. Whatever the technology employed, it seems that providing students with the wherewithal to maintain their connections in going to be a key priority.

On the subject of attendance registers, Clive Buckley, a principal lecturer at Glyndwr University, Wales, suggested using handheld scanners to capture information off student smart cards. His university already used such devices, obviating the need to pass around pieces of paper or waste time calling out names. Amy Burvall, an educator in Hawaii, USA, went even further, suggesting an exotic version of scanning students' retinas, because 'you don't forget to bring your eyes with you', whereas students might forget or lose their smart cards. Canadian educator David Horn, over at the University of British Columbia, provided the moderate voice when he remarked that the hi-tech campus needs to incorporate both high and low tech solutions to support the needs and capabilities of all students.

For me, the reconfiguration of seating in large areas is a must. When students sit in rows and in raked auditoriums there is very little scope to enable interaction or collaboration. Although I can achieve this with my groups through social media, sometimes the physical interaction - sitting down together to discuss or create in face to face mode - is vital. Swivel chairs, or flexible seating that can be adjusted, is something that I think would considerably improve interaction and dialogue in large groups.

What are your views on these ideas? Do you have experience in any of these areas already? What are your suggestions for the campus of the future? Your comments, as ever, are always welcome.

Reference
Wheeler, S. (2015) Learning with 'e's: Educational theory and practice in the digital age. Carmarthen: Crown House Publishing.

Photo by Steve Wheeler


Reinventing learning spaces by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Social, mobile, and personal learning futures

Many of my public presentations have the prefix: Digital Learning Futures, because for me, the future of education and learning will be greatly influenced by digital technologies.

The presentation below was for the ELI 2015 (4th international conference on e-Learning and Distance Education) event in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where education and learning professionals from the entire gulf region and beyond came together to discuss the possibilities of future education scenarios.

The key argument of my presentation was that social learning, the use of mobile devices, and personal learning environments will all be vitally important components of any future learning ecology. I advised that technology is not a silver bullet, and cannot solve all the problems education is currently experiencing. Nor can it replace good pedagogy. However, once those concerns are settled I said - technology, especially the personalised, mobile devices student now own - can and often does make a huge difference in how people learn, and can neither dismissed nor omitted from any future pedagogical discourse.

Digital Learning Futures: Social, Mobile and Personal Technologies from Steve Wheeler

Photo by Victor Grigas on Wikimedia Commons


Social, mobile, and personal learning futures by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.